Chapter One: The Mays of Shelby Creek

The
May House in North Prestonsburg, Kentucky, built by Samuel
May in 1817, is the oldest brick home in the Big Sandy
Valley. A century ago it was the hub of a three-hundred-acre
farm, and, from its little knoll, commanded a view of green meadows,
herds of cattle, and fields of corn and wheat. Today it overlooks
a shopping mall and the green campus of Prestonsburg Community
College. In her essay about the house, the late Josephine
Davidson Fields called it Floyd County's Old Kentucky
Home, pointing out that its style of architecture, Federal
or Georgian, is the same as Federal
Hill, the John Rowan House in Bardstown, which, by
the way, it antedates by one year. It is six years older than
its twin sister, the William Conner House, the two-million-dollar
centerpiece of Conner
Prairie Village in Indianapolis.

Samuel May (1783-1851) was one of the pioneer builders
of Floyd County. By turns a carpenter, surveyor, contractor,
ferryman, innkeeper, farmer, justice of the peace, gold prospector,
and politician, he built the county's first permanent courthouse,
established one of its first saw and grist mills, and, from 1832
to 1839, represented the county in the state legislature. He
was also the first Floyd Countian to sign a contract involving
the development of coal.

In 1842, having overextended himself, Samuel deeded the May
Farm to his brother, Thomas May (1787-1867), one of the
founders of Pike County, after Thomas paid off his mortgage
and saved him from bankruptcy. Since 1842, except for a brief
period, the house has remained in the hands of Thomas May's
descendants, including William James May (1819-1883), Johnny
Powers May (1872-1959), and Elijah Brown May (1896-1958).
Until recently it was owned by the latter's two sons, William
H. May and E. B. May, Jr. In addition to these men, other prominent
Floyd Countians have lived under its roof, including Colonel
Andrew Jackson May (1829-1903); one of the region's leading Confederate
officers during the Civil War; Beverly Clark May (1856-1929)
County Judge from 1913 to 1917; and Leonidas Polk May (1865-1951),
County Sheriff from 1910 to 1914.

In 1997, the Samuel May House was restored by its new
owner, the City of Prestonsburg, using a $400,000 grant
from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and the Kentucky
Heritage Council.

Samuel May wasn't the only man with the May surname
to settle in Floyd County, and as a consequence, the May family
has many local branches. Newcomers should be careful not to confuse
the above-mentioned Colonel Andrew Jackson May with Representative
Andrew Jackson May (1875-1959), this region's Congressman
during the Roosevelt years. One of Kentucky's most important
power-brokers in his day, A. J. May was the grandson of
Samuel May's brother Reuben May (1800-1840), one
of the first settlers on Beaver Creek and the progenitor
of the Maytown Mays. Furthermore, the branch of the family
headed by Caleb May (1781-1827), an early settler of Magoffin
County, is separate from Samuel's and Reuben's
branch and should not be confused with it.

Because of its unique status as the county's first two-story
brick residence, and because of the prominence of the Samuel
May family in early Prestonsburg, the May House was
the center of Floyd County social life during the early years.
Local beaux and belles danced the Virginia Reel in its ballroom,
local gentry savored roast beef in its dining room, thoroughbreds
raced before cheering crowds in its meadows, and politicians
delivered speeches from its balcony. Today, for the historian,
the house provides a locus, a starting point from which
he can survey the local past, chart its principal features, and
lay out roads of access to it.

Samuel May
was the second oldest son of John and Sarah Phillips May, one
of the pioneer families of Eastern Kentucky. Originally from
Martinsburg, Berkeley County, Virginia, where they were married
in 1780, John and Sarah tried their luck in East Tennessee
before coming to this area. In the Spring of 1800 they sold their
farm on Roane's Creek in Carter County and made a long
and difficult journey through Pound
Gap to Shelby Creek in present-day Pike County,
bringing with them their six children, their livestock, and wagons
filled with all their worldly possessions. This homestead was
located a few miles below the mouth of Robinson Creek, and about
two miles above the confluence of Shelby Creek with the West
(Levisa) Fork of the Big Sandy River. George Caleb Bingham's
painting of Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers Through Cumberland
Gap gives us some idea of what the journey through Pound Gap
must have been like.

In 1800 Shelby Creekwas
covered by old-growth poplar, oak, and other hardwoods, and when
John and his family arrived, they faced the daunting task
of carving a farm out of the wilderness. Samuel spent
a about three years of his young manhood on this farm before
coming to Prestonsburg about 1803. The oldest son, John, Jr.,
had left home the previous year to marry Caty Hanson in Carter
County, Tennessee. Thomas, the third son who was sixteen
in 1803, was the oldest of the May children remaining at home
to help John and Sarah on the farm.

Two May family genealogists, Fred T. May and Tress
May Francis, have discovered many interesting facts about
John May. In 1776, for example, he was living in the home
of his uncle, Daniel May, located at the corner of Queen
and Burke Streets in Martinsburg. In those days the town was
a station on the Wilderness Road, a major route for migration
from the Eastern Seaboard to frontier settlements in North Carolina
and Kentucky. In October, 1776, the Virginia Assembly
passed a bill providing funds for the raising of six battalions
of infantry. Berkeley County was required to raise eighty-four
men. One of those who volunteered for duty was John May,
age seventeen. In December, 1776 John's regiment marched to New
Jersey, where they witnessed the Battle of Long Island from the
Jersey shore. They also watched General Washington and his men
make their retreat across the Hudson.

In the Spring of 1779, John returned to Martinsburg
and began his courtship of Sarah Phillips. They were married
in March, 1780, after "publishing the banns" in a local
church. In 1845, thirty-two years after John's death,
Sarah applied for a widow's pension, and as part of her
application, she gave a deposition detailing the facts of John's
military career. Among other things, she recalled that golden
day in April, 1779, when she had first laid eyes on her future
husband.

Out on an errand, she had seen two local boys, Jacob Orr
and Jacob Pink, take John into Kinney's Tavern and
treat him to a drink. When she asked another boy why they were
celebrating, he told her that John had just returned from the
Army. Sarah died in 1846 and is buried beside her husband in
the William Keathley Graveyard on Shelby Creek. The graves are
located in a grove of trees and marked by native headstones.
One of the stones has the faintly legible inscription, "John
May born..." Her inscription has disappeared.

John May's service in the Continental Line makes
him typical of the Virginians who came to Kentucky following
the Revolution. As most readers know, Kentucky was part of the
Commonwealth of Virginia from 1776 to 1792. Kentucky historian
George Morgan Chinn has reminded us that Virginia, during
the Revolution, financed her war effort by issuing her soldiers
treasury warrants good for a specified number of acres on her
western frontier. The number of acres granted varied according
to rank, and warrant holders were allowed to locate their claims
on vacant land anywhere in the territory. Those not wishing to
settle in Kentucky sold their warrants to speculators at greatly
reduced prices. As a result of this policy, thousands of veterans,
speculators and surveyors came to Kentucky after the war, the
former to claim their lands, establish farms, and raise families,
and the latter to make a fast buck.

Although researchers have uncovered a wealth of information
about John May, they haven't yet settled an important
question. Was he the first of his family to settle on Shelby
Creek? Unfortunately, there are two good reasons why this question
may never be answered. The first is the fact that Kentucky's
first two Federal Census Schedules, the 1790 Census and
the 1800 Census, were destroyed when British soldiers burned
the Capitol Building at Washington in 1814.

The second is the fact that Floyd County's early land records
were destroyed when the Floyd County Courthouse burned
in 1808. Indeed, fire seems to be the bane of Floyd County historians.
The problem is further complicated by the fact that the findings
of the May family genealogists, who rely on documentary
evidence, fail to support the conclusions of local historians,
who sometimes rely on mere word-of-mouth. In other words, on
the question I have just posed, the genealogists say one
thing and the historians say another.

A good example of the latter is Catlettsburg historian William
Ely, who interviewed Pike County old-timers in the 1880s.
He concluded that "amongst the first" of the Mays to
settle on Robinson Creek was a man named Thomas May, and
that members of this man's family were living on the creek as
early as 1796. Furthermore, says Ely, Thomas May
was "a very jovial man, fond of fiddling and dancing, and
popular with his neighbors." Then comes the shocker: "He
owned more slaves than any man on Sandy, either in his day or
since, footing up in number seventy-one." Ely says
nothing whatsoever about John May, however, and he frankly
admits that he has "failed to gather any material on which
to base a consecutive history of the doings of the May family."

Genealogists know with certainty that Samuel May had
a brother, Thomas May (1787-1867), the previously-mentioned
buyer of Samuel's farm in 1842. According to Fred T. May,
when John May died in 1813, Thomas took possession
of his father's farm on Robinson Creek. One of the founders of
Pike County, this man's life is well-documented. In 1822, for
example, he was one of six surities for the bond of Spencer
Adkins, the first clerk of Pike County.

Was this Thomas May the "very jovial man"
of Ely's account? If so, then Ely's report that
Thomas May owned seventy-one slaves is inaccurate, for
there is no evidence in census records showing that John May
or any of his sons owned large numbers of slaves. John May
owned no slaves in 1810, nor did Samuel. Thomas
doesn't appear on census rolls until 1820. In 1820 Samuel
owned two slaves. Thomas owned one slave in 1830, four
in 1840 and none in 1850.

Another example of the oral history approach to the problem
is an article, "First Settlers on Robinson Creek,"
published by Mrs. Jessie Horne's Third Grade Class, Robinson
Creek Elementary. In 1972 Horne's students interviewed a
number of modern-day old-timers on Robinson Creek as part of
their history project. Horne's subjects told their interviewers
that "the first settlers on Robinson Creek were Mays."
They also claimed that the father of the clan, Thomas May,
"had a patent on all the land from Shelby to the forks of
Robinson Creek." Like Ely's a century earlier, Horne's
subjects preserved the tradition that the Mays had "owned
a lot of slaves."

May genealogist Fred T. May takes issue with both of
these accounts. Ely's account is suspect, he argues, because
Ely's "admission of the limited material available for an
accurate report of the May family casts doubt on any research
he did on the subject." Fred also points out that
by the 1880s, "there was a very large population of Mays
available to provide May family history, and steamboat traffic
was regular from Ely's hometown of Catlettsburg to Floyd and
Pike County." Furthermore, "the descendants of John
and Caleb appear to account for all of the Mays, and only
John's descendants were in the Shelby Creek area."
As for the findings of Mrs. Jessie Horne's Third Grade Class,
they are also of dubious value, because of "the lack of
any substantiated documentation of the stories" by Horne's
subjects.

Notwithstanding my own predilection for the glamour which
a large slaveowner would bring to the house, I must admit that
Fred's argument is a convincing one. Ely's Fiddler Thomas
May is probably Thomas May (1787-1867) distorted by
a piece of gossip. When I searched the record books for evidence
of Fiddler's existence, I came up empty-handed.

&COPY; 1997 Robert L. Perry

Notes by Fred T. May:With the agreement
of Dr. Perry, a few minor details of the story of the Mays first
few years on Shelby Creek have been corrected in the text above.

Soon after the death of John in 1813
his son Thomas married and assumed responsibility for his mother
Sarah and his younger siblings still living at home. Sarah lived
with Thomas until she died, sometime between January 1848 and
the time of the 1850 U.S. Census in Pike County (not in 1846
as assumed by earlier genealogists). Within a year or so after
his father's death, Thomas moved the family to Robinson Creek,
where he lived and reared his family until his death in 1867.
He and his wife, Dorcas Patton May, are buried on Robinson Creek
beneath their shared gravestone. Eli's account of the family
obviously confuses Thomas with his father John, who was the first
member of the May family to own land on Shelby Creek and its
tributary of Robinson Creek.